Today's Take: Heart disease has family on pins and needles

Jan. 30, 2014

Adam Rodewald

Written by

Press-Gazette Media

Risk factors

Researchers have identified several factors that increase a person’s risk for heart disease: Age. Most people who die of coronary heart disease are 65 or older. Gender. Men have a greater risk of heart attack than women. Heredity. Children of parents with heart disease are more likely to develop it themselves. Smoking. A smoker’s risk is 2-4 times greater than a non-smoker’s. Cholesterol. As blood cholesterol rises, so does risk of heart disease. Blood pressure. Higher blood pressure increases risk. Activity. An inactive lifestyle increases a person’s risk. Weight. Excess weight will increase risk. SOURCE: American Heart Association

American Heart Month

February is American Hear Month. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women. Every year, about 715,000 Americans have a heart attack, and about 600,000 people die from heart disease, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

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Two sisters sit shoulder to shoulder on a living room sofa, shaken and feeling like walking time bombs who could drop dead any day.

That’s how it happened to their younger brother. And their father. And their grandfather before him.

They knew heart disease ran in the family, and they did all the right things. They met with their doctors. Took the right tests. Ate the right foods. Exercised the right amount of time.

So on Dec. 10 when Sue Bielinski and Kay Nelson found themselves in the same wing of the same hospital on the same day for a blockage in the same left descending artery, they were disturbed so deeply they haven’t recovered.

Heart disease widowed the women’s mother 40 years ago and left them, along with their three siblings, with no father for the rest of their lives.

By the time the women had reached middle age, they thought little about the health of their hearts.

Genetics would remind them.

In 2008, the eldest brother, encouraged by his doctor, received a heart calcium test, which led to a stress test followed by a catheterization and finally a stent in his left descending artery.

The same tests discovered blockage in Bielinski’s left descending artery in 2012.

The youngest brother scheduled an appointment to have his heart tested in October 2013. He never made it to the appointment but came to the emergency room with flu-like symptoms. Surgeons performed a quintuple bypass heart surgery. He died five days later at the age of 49.

A month later Bielinski returned to the hospital for blockage in the same artery as before. Nelson, 48, found herself in the hospital, too.

As they tell their story in their living room with bitter cold wind licking the world outside, they say, “honestly, we’re still on shock.”

“We’re all on pins and needles because we don’t know what to expect next,” Nelson said.

Bielinski carries with her a stack of brochures on heart disease and calcium scores, which can detect signs of a blockage. She gives them to friends or people at church.

Her own children, who are approaching 30 years old, are being tested.

Now they want others they don’t know to learn about the risks and symptoms, too.